Welcome to our very first episode of Moustache & Blade! This first show is more of a “Meet the Hosts” type hang out. Listen while both Douglas Smythe and Ryan Steven Green tell you a little about themselves and their mutual interests in wet shaving and facial hair. Hear how they met and take a little ride with them on a free association rant about shaving, moustaches, The Beatles, Hitler’s evil toothbrush and much more!
Download Transcription of Moustache & Blade Episode 1 Here, Or Find It Below!
Link to films mentioned: http://howtogrowamoustache.com/facial-fur-wet-shave-cinema/
Link to Ryan’s recent documentary: Circle the Wagen
Link to Interview with Ryan Steven Green: http://howtogrowamoustache.com/how-to-grow-a-moustache-feature-interview-with-filmmaker-ryan-steven-green/
Link to Duo Interview of F. Stone Roberts: http://howtogrowamoustache.com/the-roots-of-whisker-wars-feature-interview-with-filmmaker-f-stone-roberts/
If you have any questions on facial fur or wet shaving please leave it on our show voice mail and we will be sure to answer it for you and possibly air it on a future episode! Also,howtogrowamoustachestore.com is now live!
(347) 333-1511 [outside of US dial oo1 first]
Also, please Follow us on Twitter
You can also contact us via email: Douglas@moustacheandblade.com or Ryan@moustacheandblade.com
We also encourage you to get the buzz out and visit: http://moustacheandblade.com this will bring you to a pre-populated tweet that all you need to do is send! Thanks again for listening and check out our other episodes!
Episode 2: Interview with Italian Barber
Episode 3: Interview with Maggard Razors
Episode 4: Interview with Captain’s Choice Aftershave
Coming soon: Feature Interview with Dr. Adam Causgrove of the American Mustache Institute!
Transcription of Moustache & Blade Episode 1
Official Show Intro: Welcome to the Moustache & Blade Podcast. A show dedicated to all things facial fur and traditional wet shaving in an effort create global facial awareness. And now, here are your hosts: Douglas Smythe and Ryan Steven Green.
Douglas: Hey this is Douglas Smythe from HowToGrowAMoustache.Com.
Ryan: And I am Ryan Steven Green, a documentary film maker and partner in crime to Mr. Smythe.
Douglas: He certainly is. And today’s show is brought to you by Synergy Shaving Soap, which can be found at howtogrowamoustachestore.com and if anyone out there has a question for us about moustaches or blades, you can reach us at our hotline and leave a voice mail question that we’ll possibly play on air at (347)-333-1511, if you’re out of the country, just add 001-(347)333-1511. You can also email us directly either myself or Ryan. I am Douglas@moustacheandblade.com and he is Ryan@moustachandblade.com. okay, Ryan what are we up to today?
Ryan: You know, I just really…I want to get to know you and I think your public wants to get to know you too so I’ve prepared some questions to kind of hopefully draw you out a little. Show a side that our listeners are not aware of. There’s nothing so controversial here, it’s all nice and easy so…
Douglas: Whoa, I like that. Okay, let’s do this. What have you got?
Ryan: Let’s start big.
Douglas: I like big.
Ryan: who is Douglas Smythe?
Douglas: [Laughing] Douglas Smythe is a writer, a soap maker and currently a podcaster. A moustache aficianado as well as a wet shaving geek.
Ryan: Question #2, who is Douglas Smythe really?
Douglas: Really? Douglas Smythe is a humble servant of the people and of a man of a few words…today.
Ryan: You know when I ask these questions I don’t really know what I’m going for but it’s funny like when you pick up on somebody because there’s a lot I could say about you. Though we’re relatively new to one another. When I describe Smythe, what I always say is Smythe is a man of his word. And the reason I say that is maybe it’s by point of comparison because when you live in Los Angeles like I do, there’s a lot of people who say things and they don’t do them. And so when you meet somebody, who says things and then does them and not only that but says things or hears things and doesn’t forget about it, that’s an incredible attribute. And to me, that’s one of the defining characteristic of Mr. Douglas Smythe.
Douglas: Ah jeez man, thank you. Maybe you should be representing me during this interview.
Ryan: Okay, how about this, here’s one a little less personal. Describe shaving. The act of shaving, very broad.
Douglas: Well, the act of shaving is not something that…well, are we talking about male shaving or female shaving?
Ryan: Good point of verification. We’re talking males here.
Douglas: Okay, yeah. Well shaving, its something truly unique to man. Something you have to do. Something that is a chore, a pain, something you could care less about. Its one of those things in life that you gotta do unless you’re a beardo, other than that, most people have to shave for their job, have to shave for whatever. Its something we do as men.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah, I mean it’s a chore, its something we’re compelled to do whether we like it or not. These are certainly salient features of the act of shaving. I guess that being said, what is it about shaving? I mean how come this innocuous act, this chore, what is it about this that has attracted you so and what is it about that has…how do you look at that? There’s so much more here. There is maybe something even beautiful here. There’s maybe something exciting here. How did you come to shaving? Tell me about your process of coming to shaving as an activity that you look forward to rather than being a drag maybe.
Douglas: well, my interest in it is rather personal. It’s something I was introduced to by watching my dad use a safety razor that he inherited from his father. So I grew up watching this. In fact, It was kind of like bonding to me. This was something I always shared with him on the weekends. I’d sit and watch him. I was just so fascinated by it and I don’t really think he really even noticed me at first but it’s dad, it’s the weekend, he’s home, he’s not working and I was there in the bathroom watching him do his thing. And eventually, I was really young…8 or 9 maybe even younger actually when it started. Eventually he realized that I had taken an interest in this and he thought It would be fun to start training me how to shave at that age. He had another razor that he inherited from my granddad as well and he would take the blade out of it and give it to me and lather me up and show me…at that time it was more just for fun, I didn’t realize he was teaching me how to do it properly. It was just something I was doing with my dad. He’d lather me up and I’d scrape my face along with him. Mimicking him directly. He actually pulled a little stool up to sink that I’d stand on it to see the mirror. Yeah, that’s pretty much how it began. It ran for a couple of years. It was our weekend shave and…again he would adjust my hand as I was shaving and even though there was no blade in there, he was teaching me almost how to shave properly. And this went on for probably 2, 3 years. I was finally 10 when I knew I wasn’t interested in it anymore, I just grew away from it. I Started skateboarding…I was into rock and roll, etc. I just got away from it and spending time with my dad on the weekend shaving.
Ryan: But around this time too, shaving actually become something you have to do because you beards have started growing, girls have started making fun of you. Its junior high, and this time you have to actually put a blade to your face.
Douglas: Yeah, I probably didn’t start shaving until high school.
Ryan: Okay.
Douglas: I have light hair. Where I went to high school, it was primarily Portuguese. There were a lot of people from Portugal there and…so I’d try to grow out that little blonde moustache and I still stuck at it. The thing is, it was a private school. Officially we were only allowed to have a moustache and our hair could not be any longer than 2” below our ears. So I really had to rock the moustache hard. If you did try to grow a goatee you’d be sent to the principal’s office and he’d give you a can shaving goo and a razor and you had to shave before you could re-attend any classes. Maybe that was my introduction into cartridge razor shaving…I didn’t like this principal at all or the Vice Principal. That was the time I started shaving. I pretty much taught myself how to use a cartridge razor and I already had the moves then. I had the shaving gel and my disposable razors. That was the end…honestly back then I didn’t have a lot of hair on my face to begin with, so dragging one of those things across my face, I didn’t think anything of it. My father ended up giving me his aristocrat and my own old spice mug and a brush, one day. It was actually Father’s Day.
When I came home, there it was. I was like I forgot all about this thing. And looking at the razor, it suddenly brought back those times we spent together in the bathroom on Saturday and Sunday mornings. It took a couple of years really for me to start using it again. But once I did…you know I actually…it’s true I actually started using the brush and the soap first before I picked up that razor again. And that was due to the fact that blades were hard to find. You know, in the 90’s… the internet hadn’t exploded as it has now and hardware was tough to find.
Since then I’ve delved into very many things, as one does. And now getting back to it, I think about yoga, it’s meditative, it’s relaxing, it feels great.
Ryan: It is kind of cultural in that way, the speed of life is such that things like taking maybe half an hour or even 15 minutes to shave your face seems absurd.
Since you’ve gotten me into wet shaving, I’ve started to realize the other things in my life that I’ve kind of put into place to fulfill that kind of slowing down thing because its very important to me as well. Putting a record on a record player is an act you have to participate in, take time to do cook dinner is something I enjoy doing. For this reason, I smoke a tobacco pipe and… because you’re forced to slow down your pace when you do that and whatever it’s taken away from me health wise more or less, its more than making up for the intentionality of the act itself. Its just the time for me to slow down and then think about life and what I need to do. I think these things are very important, maybe more so today than ever before.
Douglas: I agree with you completely. Well said.
Ryan: You pointed out something else, its leads to another one of questions. There’s this funny sort of dichotomy, paradox even in the wet shaving phenomenon we could say. Especially as in regards to you, this technology is antiquated. Its not quite dead but it is certainly out of date and yet there is this other aspect to your life and work and that’s this cutting edge technological aspect, you know social media and the web and podcasting. These things that are if not the newest of newest are of the technology age…and so you have the old and the new, you know…how do you think about that or do you think about that?
Douglas: I do think about that. I think about that quite a lot because part of me wants to resist all this downfall of western civilization, you know the internet, web and social media. And another part of me, that is a little bit brighter I think, embraces it.
Ryan: Where there are other plans to make HowToGrowAMoustache a monthly newsletter that was mailed to you. A mail order catalogue maybe, for your products.
Douglas: [Laughing] That’s not very Green, no. Now I do embrace technology. I think more people need to at a certain extent, I mean when its done well and done right as well as anything else like that, I mean there’s a lot more bad than good which will turn other people off but the playing field has been leveled in so many ways where everyone now has a voice. I mean this podcast alone proves that. You know, back in the days, you couldn’t do this. Now we’re being heard all over the world and that blows my mind. Hopefully people feel we are offering some value to what’s out there…the trash that’s out there. And again, if it wasn’t for social media, a lot of these thoughts and concepts wouldn’t make it to the people. I’m almost jealous of the children growing up in today’s world.The exposure of all this music and the tutorials online, YouTube, I mean you don’t really have to grow up studying music with a private teacher. I had to go once a week to my instructor, now I can get free lessons anytime, on anything online. These kids are gonna be monsters when it comes to the arts & music, there may be a bit of backlash, maybe because you can easily click from one song to the next song in different countries, music from all over the world. I remember growing up, you get to know one new album for a month, that’s what we had. I could sing every lyric or scat every guitar solo that’s how intimate the experience was… And then you save your money up from your paper route and buy another album.
These kids are jumping around so fast. I don’t know if it’s the same intimacy that we had or were forced to have so and the same thing goes with everything else. But when it comes to wet shaving, its different. The wet shaving culture, it fascinates me as much as the pieces that are available now. I can find a vintage razor literally online. Once it arrives you are so excited.
I’m a collector. I grew up collecting comic books, stamps, coins, these things have always fascinated me, stamps especially. I would just wonder what their stories were, where they came from, you know all that combined. Maybe I’m going back, you, know going back to my childhood, back to the things that intrigued me.
Antiques also fascinated me. Therefor vintage razors are just really the perfect thing for me to latch onto. Form and function really turn me on and the process of learning how to use it. Its just a great hobby all around, and then there is also the weight of history…like Rome. [In reference to episode 2]
Ryan: like Rome, yes. Dog I cannot tell you when I was in Rome…this is such a departure from razors but maybe not …it took me…I think about 4 hours to walk the floor of the Forum. And anybody who has not been to Rome, the forum is not large it’s a very small area but I’m a huge history buff. My dad taught history as his career and so I grew up around another history buff. And to stand on the floor of the forum in Rome was so overwhelming to me. Every couple dozen feet I would just stop and then start to weep. I was just…I wept my way across the forum feeling the weight of history. The world of shaving doesn’t have as quite as deep a history but it’s valuable at least in the circumstantial aspect of it.
Douglas: It does have just as deep as history though, I mean it goes back to before the times of Rome, I mean it goes way back.
Ryan: Do tell.
Douglas: I mean they were probably shaving gladiators inside the Coliseum, to keep their hair short and keep their beards close so their opponents wouldn’t get a hold of it and use it to their advantage in the match. I mean we know shaving goes all the way back to Egypt, and probably further. So lets be clear, shaving is an ancient practice that’s still going on and we’re getting close to that when we use a vintage razor. You can feel it, I mean, I hate to get like really metaphorical or really flowery…
Ryan: Why do you have to? Let it out man.
Douglas: well I don’t wanna turn anybody off to it but it really is this heavy thing…it’s a connection made when you give it a go. Its…I can’t put it into words right now.
Ryan: I can dig that though, I mean there are things in my life that certainly I love because they feel like I am tapping into things that my ancestors did thousands of years ago. This is the same recipe, this is the same act. This is the same place, I mean there’s the Roman Forum, its tapping into the ways people lived long before us and I love to gather that sense when available, you know?
Douglas: No, its true. Its like an electrical current you’re feeling through this relic that does tap into that consciousness almost of mankind. We’re making this big but these are all the feelings that one has. When you try and work with older or antique tools or whatever, you are getting back to that hands-on process. Whether you are conscious of that feeling or not, something is happening. Something chemical, I mean, these feelings are almost hardwired in our DNA, Its alchemical almost. I really don’t feel I can do it just in English language so I’m gonna switch over to French.
Ryan: [laughing] I’m glad you’re being outspoken because for any listener out there, this is the soul behind Moustache & Blade. these are the thoughts, these are the beliefs, I mean, these are the personalities that are bringing the show to life. So I think its important to state. I mean, maybe its past, maybe its too broad but its certainly part of our story and what we bring to the interviews we conduct and the news items we pick, the conversations, even the perspectives we have on what we’re talking about. So…
Douglas: it’s a passion.
Ryan: I think its important. Yeah, its definitely a passion. Speaking of…be it wet shaving, be it moustaches, I mean these are other things that go way back.
Douglas: This is good, I like the way this is going. Thank you for that Ryan.
Ryan: Okay, how about this. This will bring, me back to the specifics. This is the Moustache & Blade Podcast.
Douglas: yes.
Ryan: its featuring Douglas Smythe and Ryan Steven Green. How did you find me, Doug? Who is Ryan Steven Green?
Douglas: for those who don’t know, I run a moustache blog, howtogrowmoustache.com and I was interested in putting together a page where people could find information on facial hair and grooming. In doing so I thought it would be neat to put together a section of all the wet shaving and moustache movies, skits and commercials I could find out there…almost like a cinema on the site for anything moustache related or wet shaving related in the film world so I collected all these different movies and Ryan’s name kept popping up. I compiled a list of different directors I wanted to interview after the fact. I had a few circled on the list and Ryan was probably the second one I contacted, he got back to me right away. Not only was it that his film was a documentary about the common man and the moustache but the name itself intrigued me. It completely stood out from all the other films…Between the Upper Lip & The Nasal Passageway: A Modern Account of the Moustache.
Ryan: One little known fact about this title, I mean this isn’t, you know, on the one hand yeah, you could call it gimmicky, on the other hand, it’s a lyric to a song that a friend of mine wrote. His name is Wesley Chong. Wesley did the sound track to the film itself. Wesley had contributed music to many of my feature films. A close friend of mine, he…at my instigation at one point I had this grandeur, it was kind of plan to…this is in 2007 to make this series of sort of short glimpses of the moustache in modern society. It wasn’t about the sensatinalism surrounding the stache…in fact, that is what I was getting frustrated with, tired that moustaches had become a joke. Its something fake you put on your face. Its something for sex offenders, hillbillie’s and truckers. It has this kind of stigma of edginess attached to it. And I just…I didn’t like that. One of my favorite photos of my father is from the 70’s. He’s a young man and he’s got this mean long blonde hair and this majestic moustache. When I see that photo, I was like that is the most handsome my dad has ever looked. There were these little things I’d hear and at the same time I was growing a moustache. Of courses you’ve experienced, the comments, the looks, the questions, all that stuff happening kind of all at once. And one of the things getting back to the title of the film was I compiled a list of famous moustaches throughout history. I had my friend West, write a song about these men and I said look, there’s way too many men to mention in one song. Pick half a dozen and just write a song about it. You know, he wrote an epic like seven minute song about the moustache…and he included like almost all of these men. So beautiful. When he wrote it, I wanted to make a music video of mostly animations. That part never happened but the song exists and its called… rather one of the lyrics is…no I think the title of the song itself is called ‘Ode to Moustache’ and one of the lyrics is ‘Between The Upper Lip & The Nasal Passageway’. I guess I just chose that as the title of the film as memorial to the music video that never happened. That was a rather long side story. Sorry about that.
Douglas: No, no that actually answered the question I failed to ask when I interviewed you way back. I don’t know why that is…the point is, that was the most important question I could have asked- where did the title come from? Because it really stood out on the page and I said I’m contacting this guy.
Ryan: Wesley Chong was…the kid is brilliant.
Douglas: so that’s how I found you. Yeah, and like I said, that interview went swimmingly well. And so then I invited Ryan…you to join me in interviewing another director. I thought I’d be great to have another film maker interviewing this film maker, who happened to be F. Stone Roberts. He did a great facial fur film called ‘Splitting Hairs’. We didn’t do it in my normal fashion, we did it over the phone. It was a great interview.
Ryan: It was very long.
Douglas: It was three excited guys shooting the breeze with different accents. After the interview it was my job to transcribe it. Transcribing all of that, which took me about 3 days, it sounded like a podcast. And that when I realized that a podcast was possible. Especially the fact that you hopped on board so fast. So yeah, I knew it was just meant to be. That’s how Ryan Steven Green strolled into my life. And since then I reviewed his recent documentary, Circle The Wagen, which is at all the film festivals now. Where are you showing up next?
Ryan: Well, by the time this is heard, we’ve already played them but as of the recording of this podcast, this weekend we’re playing Orlando Film Festival. And next weekend, we’re playing Austin Film Festival. To date, you know what I have it right here on my website, I can tell you, we’ve got Downtown Film Festival in Los Angeles, we’ve got Albuquerque Film Festival, that’s where we premiered actually, we’ve got Columbia Gorge, we’ve got Orlando, did I mention that already? We’ve got Austin, we’ve got Sheffield, we’ve got Topango Film Festival. That’s in our first 4 months of existence so far. There are others that are already…they are not official collections, which means we can’t mention their names at this point but there are other festivals we will be playing in the near future.
Douglas: That’s great. So I got to see this movie already, he sent me a copy of it before. It was really secretive, I couldn’t show it to anybody in order for me to review it. And I didn’t know what to expect after the moustache movie. This is about the volkswagen, vintage volkswagen culture. It’s a fascinating documentary. It’s a…how would you say, it’s a dramady.
Ryan: we call it a buddy road trip dramady
Douglas: Yes. its about, to a certain extent two buddies on each side of the country meeting up in the middle of the U.S to drive a Volkswagen van that was bought site un-seen, and the goal is to get it back to California. And its just following these two across the country which took them at end of it all, 3 years to fulfill their mission.
Ryan: 4 years
Douglas: 4 years, yeah.
Ryan: 4 years between the two trips whether or not we made it back to California.
Douglas: Actually I don’t wanna give too much away, I don’t wanna spoil the party. It’s a fascinating documentary. And most interesting… its great. It’s a feel good road trip movie documentary. Something I haven’t’ seen in a long time. And its not the cheap road trip MTV style films that we’ve seen so many of. Its something real and its just fascinating to watch.
Ryan: That’s the word that really hits for me, the real. And not just in describing Circle the Wagen. That’s what attracts me to the documentary and what I try to make sure is conveyed in the documentaries I create. And why even Between The Upper lip & The Nasal Passageway, its not a farce, there’s comedy in it but its inherent to talking about moustaches. It is not trying to play up the moustache. Its something more. In fact you’d recall there’s a guy in the film, a man in the street interview, and I asked him do you feel like the moustache is cool? He said something to the effect that ‘no I don’t think its cool’. That’s how I hold the moustache, I don’t’ think its for everybody. At the same time, I hear some guys like oh my God! What a great moustache, I wish I could grow one of those.
Douglas: [Laughing] yeah!
Ryan: a lot of guys see that not realizing that they can. They just haven’t’ given it a real go. And when I say a real go, I mean its like 3 or 4 months before you’re gonna start to see results. Takes quite a bit of time before its actually there.
Douglas: Its funny being someone who sells moustache wax all the orders start coming in November 1st…I don’t know what these guys are thinking. Kind of like they’re gonna be pulling off a handle bar by the 31st. It doesn’t work like that. You need to go through about 4 or 5 months before you will see results. But anyways I’m grateful for that.
I just got an email the other day, I get these all the time. They created or work for someone who designed a moustache app for the smartphone. It’s a camera app for if and when you take someone’s photo it puts a moustache on them. You know what I’m talking about? These people they send me these type of things all the time thinking it will be in my best interest to put on my site. That’s not the stuff I wanna support. I don’t wanna get behind moustache shaped cookies and bottle openers, etc. I was amused by the whole thing when it began but now its just too much and it takes away from the moustache and especially you know it may have been partly responsible for Movember…but we all know that is for a good cause so I will not harp on that. However, the more this other stuff is floating around, it cheapens a good cause and I don’t wanna see that kill the whole movement. But yeah, some people are having fun with it. And maybe it creates a greater moustache appreciation. We might just see a moustachioed president in our time…
Ryan: now come on…[Laughing] get real people, grow moustache. We should definitely stay away from politics on the show. Like a moustache or a Volkswagen. These are things like it doesn’t matter your political affiliation. It doesn’t matter what religion you practice. Like these leveling human things that everybody can connect with. And that’s another thing that really I’m attracted to. Both the moustache film and the Volkswagen film. These rallying points for humanity. There’s nothing ill you could say bout a moustache or about a Volkswagen…which would naturaly bring us to…the toothbrush moustache. Garlie Chaplin’s! I would say I love Charlie Chaplin as has been evidence on other podcast we’ve done this far.
Douglas: Charlie Chaplin’s moustache was not real!
38:14
Ryan: That always irked me in the slightest bit, you know. I could tell you a story about the Hitler moustache, it’s a very short one.
Douglas: just like the stache. [Laughing]
Ryan: My best friend Charlie Pecoraro, you’ve seen him in two films now. He’s in both the moustache film and Circle the Wagen. As an experiment, when he pretty much got rid of his handle bar moustache, he went down to a Toothbrush Moustache. He thought i’ll just wear this for a day. I wish I had him on the show to talk about this.
Douglas: Oh yeah, we will definitely have him.
Ryan: In summary, his day turned into week and it was like one of the greatest social experiment because the reaction would be so strong and so varying . You know, people for and people against. We should definitely have him to talk about that.
Douglas: I’d love to. Micheal Jordan tried doing that too. I think that this says a lot about people. Why do we have to attach certain meanings to certain things, I mean like…one way of walking past and getting through to certain issues is confront them and redefine what they are about. As an exercise for all of us, I don’t mean anything bad, but we should bring back that stache and come to terms with it! its just almost laughable not what it’s associated with but just the way…we’re bigger than that now. Really I can’t rock a little tiny moustache, you know.
Ryan: Nobody exists in a vacuum, we’re all part of this history. And the atrocities that happened. So it does have to be reconciled. So that means that when we bring it back now is it in seriousness or is it ironic…maybe that’s a phase that the toothbrush moustache will have to go through so that 30 years from now it’s something we can wear normally again. It just reminds me like every band since the Beatles has to reconcile the fact that the Beatles came before them in some way…you know.
Douglas: Hmm…yeah
Ryan: It’s just…there’s so much energy that presently dominates that fear whether you like it or not. The Beatles came before you, you know.
Douglas: the thing is, and a lot of people don’t realize this, while the Beatles were considered cutting edge and what not, these guys, these four blokes had a serious machine behind them. So they could actually borrow from stuff that was already going on around them from other bands and they would have seen them doing it first. So the Beatles to me are more of a mouthpiece of what was going on in the time, you know rather than to raise them all up and say the Beatles did this first. The Beatles didn’t necessarily do a lot of stuff first. The Beatles made it known to the masses first and so I think they get…I don’t wanna say they get too much credit for that but I’m gonna say…they get a little too much credit for that.[Laughing] The machine that backed up the Beatles got it to the masses first. So that’s my little rant on the Beatles. I love them, don’t get me wrong.
Ryan: There is one album that features artwork. Where all four of the Beatles have moustaches.
Douglas: that’s Sgt. Pepper’s! That album also came with four cut out moustaches.
Ryan: Yes it did! My copy sadly does not still have those but my copy of the White Album still has the poster of them, you know the pictures and all that stuff so its kind of fun.
Douglas: Then there is the whole Paul is Dead thing. On the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s you can see “Paul” written in flowers in a bass guitar shape on the grass!
Ryan: I have noticed Paul on the guitar shape, yes.
Douglas: The conspiracy! Its still circulating, there are documentaries on it. If you ever get a chance to watch them, they’re highly entertaining, pun intended, that’s fascinating to me also…some of the conspiracy stuff out there. Check out The Winged Beatle…its a great romp.
Ryan: And the staches!
Douglas: Yeah, They all had moustaches and the reason for this was, well this is the myth behind it anyway, because Paul had gotten into motorcycle accident, I believe and he had a cut on his upper lip so he grew a moustache.
Ryan: He lost teeth too.
Douglas: Did he lose teeth?
Ryan: If you can see pictures of him during Rubber Soul, where he’s getting the caps put on his teeth.
Douglas: so yeah, he was really using his moustache as camouflage and the other guys just hopped on board. In fact, during the recording, I’m pretty sure this is during the recording of the album Let It Be…they all drink out of moustache cups. The moustache tea cups with the built in stache guards. So that being said, a moustache can hide stuff too. Take attention away from things, on or missing from your face. You can use a moustache also if your nose is a little large. You wanna make your nose look smaller, grow moustache. It takes away the attention. Then again, if you wanna hide scars or what not, a moustache or beard is also the obvious facade.
Ryan: or a tattoo!
Douglas: Yeah, if you’re like me, and got that tattoo on your upper lip of a dolphin back in the 90’s grow the ‘stache out, it will hide it. So, that was a round about way of talking about moustaches and shaving. I hope we didn’t put anyone to sleep out there. If you’re listening to this, we hope you’re enjoying our first episode, our intro episode. We just want you to get to know us. This is what Ryan and I usually do. Roundabout conversations. We get a lot out of it and we hope you get a lot out of it…
Ryan: There’s a certain logic to them at the same time. If you’ve tuned in and you’ve made it to this point in the episode, I’m glad that you’ve done so and I hope you’re edified for having done so. And I hope this episode helps to shed a certain light on what’s to come. I hope it kind of colors your experience of Moustache & Blade because these are the men, these are the personalities that are bringing you this show….I tend to think it was worth your while…
Douglas: yes…I think people can get behind us. And that being said, you wanna tell people what’s in store for our next couple of episodes?
Ryan: We’ve got some great interviews coming up and we shall start with Mr. Joe Abatangio of italianbarber.com. Abatangio, if you did not catch it, its actually Italian though the man himself is from Canada. Next up we’ve got Doctor Adam Paul Paulsgrove of American Moustache Institute fame and last but not least we have Mr. Brad Maggard of Marggard Razors, which I’m very excited for you all to hear because its a fun interview from a very interesting man who does some rather interesting restoration work. Straight razor restoration. He’s is the go-to guy for that and we’re gonna have him…
Douglas: We’re gonna have probably Joe and Brad in a lot of future episodes popping in here and there. You’ll hear from Mantic 59 as well, sharing some tips and advice about shaving. So all this and more people are coming up on our future episodes so please, please pop back in and hang out with Ryan and I at Moustache & Blade.
Ryan: Another thing, if you have any questions, or would like to contact us, you can call us directly or leave a message on (347)333-1511 and you can leave question that we’ll possibly play on air and answer that being question being related to wet shaving or moustache related stuff. So that again, is (347)333-1511. If you are outside of the country, remember to dial 001 first. Also, you can email Ryan or myself at Ryan ryan@moustacheandblade.com or douglas@moustacheandblade.com and we’ll be sure get back to you ASAP. You can also and we encourage you to, tweet about Moustache & Blade you can simply do this by visiting http://moustachandblade.com this will bring you to our prepopulated tweet announcing that you’re listening to your new favorite podcast, Moustache & Blade.
Douglas: So until next time people this is Douglas Smythe signing off and Mr. Ryan Steven Green. Thanks for listening and grow for it…ciao.
About Douglas Smythe
